Classroom Integration

6/19/2013

The Connecticut Technical High School System, in partnership with Energize Connecticut, opened the state's fourth e-house at Platt Technical High School in Milford. Each 16 ft. by 20 ft. structure, which was built by students, incorporates weatherization, energy efficiency labs, and solar photovoltaic and solar thermal systems.

6/12/2013

In today’s blended learning environment, an increasing number of students and teachers have access to technology that extends the educational process well beyond the classroom walls. As part of this trend, school districts across the U.S. are implementing practices and policies that transform learning environments into one of participatory learning for the purpose of improving student outcomes.

VideoANT is a free tool for collaboratively annotating videos. I first wrote about VideoANT back in 2010. Recently, as I learned from Nathan Hall, VideoANT received a major facelift that makes it easier to use than it was before. The first improvement to note is that the service is now built on HTML5, which means that Flash is no longer needed.

One of northeast Florida’s fastest-growing tech companies is launching a trade school program for .NET Framework developers. In August, Pragmatic Works will open Vivo School, an 18-week accelerated training program that will give students Microsoft certification preparation, help them create a portfolio of real-world projects, and spend time developing actual corporate client projects.

Executives from Google Inc., Microsoft Corp., and other leading firms want to require all Massachusetts public schools to teach computer science, so local tech companies don’t have to rely on foreign workers to fill future programming and engineering jobs.

6/5/2013

Liberty will pay about $900,000 a year for four years to lease about 3,200 MacBook Air laptops for all high school students. Thousands more will be spent to upgrade software and pay for product licenses, computer bags, expanded wireless connections, and teacher training. Teachers will get laptops over the summer to begin their work, and students will get theirs in the fall.

This report discusses the promise of sophisticated digital learning systems for collecting and analyzing big data as users interact with digital systems. It proposes that this data can be used by developers and researchers to improve learning systems and to strive to discover more about how people learn.

Seventh and eighth graders in Oregon schools will get a welcome amenity next year when classes start. The board of education approved a technology lease with Apple Inc. that will put iPads in the hands of every middle school student.

Ninety Apple computers are planned for computer/testing labs at two high schools in the Crookston (Minn.) school district. The computers are being purchased thanks to income received through a million-dollar annual tax levy, from which the board is investing as much as $200,000 in technology upgrades.

5/22/2013

A student convinced Blackhawk School Board members to videotape their meetings and post the video to the school’s website. Matt Young, a junior who made a presentation, told the board videos will increase public access and awareness.

Districts are trading print for digital textbooks, with 22 states making significant digital content policy changes in recent years, and experts are urging others to go all digital within the next 5 to 7 years.

With constantly evolving technology, most school districts in Glenview, Northbrook, and other communities are in some stage of implementing a one-to-one initiative to provide each student with a technological device.

5/15/2013

If you're looking for software for your school or district, the SIIA CODiE Award winners may be a good place to start. From the cloud to mobile to collaboration, this list gives district CIOs a place to start when preparing an RFP or doing a software application search.